Looksmart buys Furl.net

Looksmart buys the Furl bookmark manager and web clipping archive service in order to get more loyal users.

(September 25 2004) This week AskJeeves launched its new MyJeeves service, making it possible for users to store their bookmarks online (see below). Given that more and more users are using several computers, or -- as many webmasters do -- more than one browser, the possibility to get access to your favorites anywhere is a great bonus.

For AskJeeves there is another benefit. For you to access your bookmarks, you will have to visit the AskJeeves site, where -- of course -- you will be presented with the AskJeeves search engine query form. The chances are that you will use the AskJeeves search engine from then on.

Hence, the search engine companies are using web research management tools as a way of getting loyal customers.

This is also why so many of the search engine companies are developing search tools that can be used for searching your own computer as well as the web. If they can get you to use one of those, they may achieve a kind of "lock-in" where you use their services all the time. Ad revenue will follow.

Looksmart is buying Furl.net for similar reasons.

Looksmart, the company behind the Looksmart pay-per-click search engine slash directory, has not been doing too well recently. By acquiring Furl it is clearly hoping to attract new searchers, and through them, more advertisers.

Furl has several features that searchers may find interesting:

Click on the Furl It! toolbar button in your browser, and Furl lets you file an article or web pages you find interesting for future reference. Yes, it does not only save the URL, it saves the text of the article itself. You can also search this text collection and add your own comments.

Furthermore, you may also share your archive with others, as they can subscribe to your bookmarks, or you may publish your list as an RSS file.

Furl will remain a free service under Looksmart ownership. However, Looksmart will include pay-per-click text ads. In return users will get more storage space.

"We're pleased to announce that we're providing 5 gigabytes (GB) of storage for each user's public archive, enough for tens of thousands of archived and searchable items," says Kevin Krim, vice president of Web properties for LookSmart

It is also interesting to note that Looksmart plans to use the information they gather from Furl users to improve their own search engine algorithms (presumably for their Wisenut search engine). A Furl "bookmark" will be considered a sign of trust in that particular web site or web page.

Furl is compatible with several browsers including Internet Explorer, Mozilla and Firefox for both Windows and Mac.

The new Ask Jeeves

Ask.com has added a "My Jeeves" feature that stores and organizes favorite search results chosen by users. Visitors may also add comments to these online bookmarks. Users that choose to register may access this information from any computer. At a later stage, Ask Jeeves will make it possible to search the bookmarked webpages.

Moreover, in the future it may also be possible to save the content of the pages, not only the links to the relevant pages, in the same way as on Furl.

John Batelle reports that AskJeeves forthcoming desktop search software (which will make it possible to search for files on your own computer as well) will be integrated into MyJeeves. This software should be ready to download late this fall.

Furthermore, there is also a "search history", a list of the searches you have done, automatically organized chronologically.

MyJeeves requires Internet Explorer 5.5 and higher or the Firefox browser. Opera is unfortunately not supported.

MyJeeves FAQ
Looksmart press release.

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